Heritage as liberation

Abstract

Why aren't archaeologists engaging in more substantive heritage work, and how might we do so? This article offers a conceptual framework for mobilizing our praxis toward the achievement of collective emancipation—what I am calling heritage as liberation. Heritage as liberation provides a mechanism for reckoning. It asks us to reevaluate our motivations and more clearly articulate what we stand for as archaeologists and heritage practitioners. I offer reflections on recent attempts by archaeologists to organize toward a just future, sketch what I think a practice of heritage as liberation offers that agenda, and then analyze the Equal Justice Initiative's (EJI) heritage work as an example of what is possible when we practice heritage as liberation. I close the article with thoughts on where archaeology stands in attempts to repair and redress past wrongs and on the range of contexts that might see an emancipatory heritage praxis enacted.

Archaeology in 2022: Counter‐myths for hopeful futures

“…In a hopeful archaeology, all futures are equally “imagined.” Archaeologists thus have a role to play in interpreting the past according to the kinds of futures we might want for humanity—and nonhumans—rather than defaulting to an endless capitalist and colonial dystopia based on an unimaginative, reductive, and inappropriate interpretation of the past. Archaeology in 2022 has contributed meaningfully to debunking myths about the past and reframing our narratives to imagine better futures (Berruti et al., 2022; Cobb and Crellin, 2022; Fryer, 2023; Greenberg and Hamilakis, 2022; Jaffe et al., 2022; Laluk et al., 2022; Matthews, 2020; Papachrysostomou et al., 2022; Politopoulos et al., in press).…”